The SoundQ Garage

Choosing Between FiiO BR13 & BerryBak BDC-U For BT High-Res Audio

• Edwin Alvarez • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Sticker shock pushed me to rethink Hi Res car audio Bluetooth. Legacy receivers from Mosconi and Audison look polished but outdated Bluetooth  and questionable value made me search for modern alternatives that cost less and deliver more. That search led to two compact boxes: the FiiO BR13 and a lesser-known BDC-U unit sometimes sold as the “BerryBak.” Both promise high‑res wireless, both lean on the same ESS ES9018K2M DAC, and both come in at a fraction of the boutique price tags. The question isn’t whether they work; it’s which one fits your habits, hardware, and expectations about codecs, control, and long‑term support.

The first surprise is how far Bluetooth has come. The BDC-U arrives with Bluetooth 5.3, USB‑C power and data, optical and coaxial digital outputs, and a harness for permanent installs. It even advertises aptX Lossless, a codec aiming at true 16‑bit/44.1 kHz transmission when the phone supports it. That last part matters: most Android devices today can do LDAC reliably, while aptX Lossless support is still thin and iPhones stick to AAC. In practice, the BDC-U pairs fast, locks into LDAC without drama, and delivers a subjectively lively output that measures slightly hotter than the FiiO. It also includes two antenna options, which helps if your glove box or center console buries radio range. If you want simple, modern, and cheap, this little brick does the job and feels sturdier than some pricier names.

FiiO’s BR13 takes a different angle: flexibility. While it runs on Bluetooth 5.1, it supports LDAC, aptX Adaptive, aptX HD, AAC, and SBC, and then adds serious I/O: optical in and out plus coaxial in and out, allowing digital passthrough inside a car or home rig. The companion app offers seven EQ presets and custom tuning, useful when your car’s DSP is locked behind menus or your factory head unit is limited. This isn’t about chasing mythical “wireless perfection” so much as giving you more routing options and smarter control. You can tuck the small chassis into a console and tailor the sound to taste. If you like to tweak, the BR13 is a better daily driver, even if its Bluetooth version trails the BDC-U on paper.

Codecs are where expectations need calibration. LDAC at 990 kbps is already excellent for most listeners and systems; it demands stable signal and proper settings, and some devices default to lower rates until you toggle them. AptX Lossless is promising, but only if both ends support it; otherwise you’ll fall back to LDAC, aptX HD, or Adaptive. iPhone users will ride AAC, which is fine but not “high‑res.” The biggest audible win often comes from clean digital output into a competent downstream DAC or DSP, good gain staging, and avoiding needless resampling. Both receivers share the same ESS chip, so differences you hear may come from implementation, output level, antenna placement, and your car’s acoustics more than from headline specs.

Day to day, both units are easy to live with. The BDC-U feels plug‑and‑play and pairs quickly, but some users will need to reselect LDAC in their phone or DAP after reconnecting. The FiiO trades a bit of setup for an app, better routing, and EQ that can fix a sagging midrange or tame a bright tweeter. Either will run from a USB port or adapter, and either can feed optical into a processor if you want to bypass analog paths. Compared with the pricey Mosconi and Audison units, you’re not giving up fidelity; you’re gaining modern connectivity without the “car audio tax.” If you crave simplicity and future‑proofed codecs, grab the BDCU. If you value features, app control, and digital passthrough, the BR13 is the smarter pick. And if true maximum fidelity is the goal, wired still wins—these boxes just make the wireless mome

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SPEAKER_00:

Q Garage. Today we're going to be reviewing two Bluetooth receivers. One is called the FIO BR13. The other one is called the BDCU from Unknown Maker. We'll be going over that in a little bit, but first I want to show you what got me going down this path. So I had been interested in buying a Bluetooth receiver, and I started looking on Dyma and doing some research. And basically, what I found first was uh the Autison Becon and the Moscone AMass. And so the Moscone AMAS, I'll show you here, um, and the Autison Becon are very similar. Um, they basically you can either uh mount them permanently with a harness that they come with, or you can mount them or connect them, I'm sorry, with a uh micro USB if you wanted to go the easy route, um, which is the one that I'm taking, the one that I took. Uh, no need to wire anything up, you just hook it up to your cigarette lighter or your USB plug, and you're good to go. Makes life a lot easier. So basically, one of the things that turned me off about these things is you can see the Musconi uh goes for like$479 on some sites. Um the beacon itself goes for$279. Uh I thought that that was a lot of money for these simple little devices, and I thought that you know we we can uh probably find just as good, if not better, for way cheaper if we did a little bit of research. But um, as far as the Moscone goes, I think this is way, way overpriced. You can find it used here and there on the sites. This is actually older technology. This has uh uh uh Bluetooth 4.2, it does run Qualcomm's LDAC LDAC uh up to 96k. Um I didn't find much info on it. There's not a lot of info available on the internet on all the uh different codecs that it uses. Um, I know that it you know it says it's designed for LDAC, it does the standard SBC Bluetooth codec, which is basically uh the code Bluetooth codec that's like on any cheap old device um that doesn't do high-res, that's not a high-res Bluetooth. So as far as the Musconi, we can just skip this one altogether because in my opinion, it's way, way overpriced for what you're getting. Um, the Autism Blue BCon Bluetooth receiver. So this is certified high-res uh wireless. Um, this one has, I believe, three different codecs uh LDAC AAC and SBC, which is again your standard Bluetooth receiver. Um, I did buy this one, I did try it. One of the things that, at least in my opinion, was it felt very cheap. I picked it up. When I picked it up, it felt super light, light as a feather. I mean, that doesn't you know mean necessarily mean that it's cheap, but um the first time that I hooked up the uh the optical cable to it, the little door on the optical um in broke, and that wasn't too um you know heartwarming. But um, you know, I thought, wow, this is a$300 unit, and the first time I plug it in, um, the door breaks. That does mean that it stopped it from working. I mean, it could be a fluke, you know, but still that didn't that didn't uh really make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Um with Autison Beacon, it comes with cables, uh, and some proprietary cables for like Autison's amplifiers and stuff like that. Um, you're only gonna use either this one or you get you can plug it in directly again with the with the uh with the micro USB. Um so the thing about this one to see is Bluetooth 5.0. Um that that's not a super old Bluetooth, but still, you know, you you can do better out there. So my research ended up uh leading me to these two guys here. The FIO, let's see. This is the FIO BR13. Um, you can buy this for about 60 bucks on Amazon, and this actually has newer Bluetooth. I believe this has Bluetooth 5.2. Um, from my research that I did. Also, the other unit that I found, lesser known, this is called the AAAB41165 BDCU Bluetooth receiver. I know that's a mouthful, but um you know how it is in the Asian markets that sometimes they have strange names. So, anyway, we'll start off with this one, okay? Now that we're already in here. So with the BDCU, basically, um I ordered it. It's$40. This actually has way better technology than the must. It blows the muscone out of the water and it blows the Autison out of the water, okay? At least in my opinion. So with this one, you have newer technology, newer Bluetooth. Uh, you actually have USB-C. You know, it's 2025. Uh everybody should be using uh USB-C by now. And it's only$40 plus shipping. I ended up paying like$61 shipped to my house. They said that there was gonna be a tariff, but there was no tariff when I received it. Um, so anyway, yeah. Oh, you know what? It does have a name. They call it the Berry Back. You can see that right here. It's hard to see, but when you get it in person, you'll see the Berry Back. Um, so we'll start off here with the connections. So you have analog output and then you have USB-C data only. So if you hook up, you can actually hook up your phone directly to this. And so basically, if you didn't want to use Bluetooth, you wanted to use uh um to get your maximum um you know resolution for for your for your songs, high-res, lossless, whatever. Uh, you can actually just go direct. That kind of defeats the purpose though of what we're looking at this for. Um on the other side, you have uh a harness connector if you wanted to mount it permanently, and then you have your optical out, and then you have your coaxial output as well. And then what's neat about this one is it comes with two different antennas. So we'll be scrolling down on that in a second. So let's go back to the antenna. So you get a little short stubby antenna, or you get a long antenna um that I believe articulates. Um, so from what I saw with this one, um it's heavier than the BR13 as far as weight. Um, as humans, we always kind of think that, well, if it's heavier, it's gotta be better. That's not necessarily true, but it does feel better, it does it does feel heftier, um, leading you, giving you the illusion that it is better. But uh anyhow, um so let's scroll down here. So believe it or not, um, so here's the uh the Bluetooth module that it has. Oh no, I'm sorry, this did I say 5.2? This has 5.3 Bluetooth. Um, I don't know, I don't think that's the latest Bluetooth, but it is a newer Bluetooth. So uh according to this, it says it has a transmission rate of 990 kilobytes per second, which is basically the L LDAC uh codec. Um, but supposedly this has Appdex lossless, which is supposed to be CD quality. Okay, so uh LDAC is the 990, so lossless is supposed to be better, but in all the literature that I read in here, um it says that the max rate is 990. So we'll take that with a grain of salt and just assume that this is the top that it can go. But supposedly lossless is supposed to be better, appdex lossless is supposed to be the top dog. So the caveat with that is your hardware has to have these these uh codecs. If your hardware doesn't have this, like if you check on your phone, and the only phones that could do this are gonna be Android-based phones, anyhow. Um and from what I've seen, I've used it on my dApps. Uh my dab, I have a dApp that has Android 13, and another dApp has Android 12. Um neither of my dApps nor my phone. I have an iPhone anyway, so which of my iPhone is gonna do AAC. Uh neither of my neither of uh my dApps can do lossless. They can do LDAC, which is considered uh the only ones that are considered high res are the appdex HD, the appdex lossless, and the LDAC. Uh some of these will have AppDex adaptive. This one has Appdex uh SBC, which is your standard Bluetooth. Um let's see. So anyway, so funny enough, this one and the uh the FOBR13 have the same uh DAC chips. Um they have the identical DAC chips, okay. Uh let's see here. Uh they do have different Bluetooth chips though. Um so we'll go back to the BDCU. Okay, so the BDCU lets you do Appdex Lossless, LDAC, AppDEX HD, and SBC, which is you know basically the bottom one. You don't want that one. Um appdex lossless is one megabyte per second. This is basically CD quality. This is the top dog. Uh doing some research, I I didn't find a lot of hardware that does appdex lossless yet. Uh, if you Google that, there are some phones from Sony and um other ones out there. Uh, there's not a lot of hardware. So even if you buy something like this, it doesn't mean that you're gonna have the app dex lossless. You have to, but most people's Android phones and dApps can do LDAC. So that's pretty damn if you can tell the differences between these two, then you got really good uh ears, anyhow. So um let's see. So yeah, uh basically we're gonna go on to the feel right now, but here's the uh the stuff that it comes with here. Um, this was the the larger antenna, the the harness comes with an optical cable, user's manual, and the unit itself. Um, I didn't have any problems. It it it it uh connects to Bluetooth insanely fast, sounds really good. Um the only thing is, you know, when you go into when you first go into your your dApp or your phone, uh you have to manually go in and change your settings every single time. That's the only thing that was a pain in the butt was you have to go into your your your Bluetooth settings and switch it to uh to uh LDAC. And I changed mine to uh the 24-bit 48 kilohertz because that's the max that mine can do. There is a setting for 96 kilohertz, but it just it it didn't produce any sound, so it um you know it's all dependent on what your hardware is limited to. So uh this is the DAC that I was talking about, the uh the ES9018K2M DAC. Uh the like I said before, the BR13 has the same DAC. So with the BR13, this this has a uh either Bluetooth 5.1 or Bluetooth 5.2. We'll see it in here. But this does do high res wireless and high res wired. Um, the interesting thing about the BR13 is we'll see right here, we'll go down, we'll go down. Is this actually does optical in, optical out, coaxle in, coaxle out. So you can actually do a pass-through with your system. This one's a little bit more versatile as far as um connections go. Uh, this doesn't have a short antenna, so if you're gonna mount this in the car, you have to fold this antenna down. It's not a big deal. Um, I know it doesn't look it, but I mean, this is here's a size comparison of the car. It's really small, so you could tuck it in your your glove box, your center armrest, or your center console. Um let's see. So also with the with the FIO BR13, you could actually do it, it comes with an app and it has seven different presets for the EQ, and then you can actually um uh do your own custom EQ work. Uh so the FIO BR13 is a little more versatile uh when it comes to connections and uh um just overall use of the product. So here is the DAC again. Uh like I said, it has the same exact DACT. So these two are pretty much priced the same. Um so pick your poison. Do you want something that you could just put in the car and set it and forget it? Like the BDCU is basically a no-frills type product, where this one you could tinker with it and you can mess with the EQ and flavor the music to your liking. Um let's see. So uh basically when I when I use both in my car, um I didn't see you know many differences with it. Um I did notice that on the BDCU it plays at a higher volume. If I have my my DAP at let's say 80, it it is like one 1.5 dB higher. I did test it with a meter. Um, it could just be that the Bluetooth is set at a higher level, the voltage on that, the out the output. The feel only comes at one cable. That's it. It's basically a USB-A to USB-C cable, no optical. Um, that's not a big deal. Uh I bought mine for about$55. It was on sale a few weeks ago. Um, if you keep out, keep an eye out, you can find it for that price. But pretty much the as far as the price goes, it it's a wash. Um as far as a clear winner, it it just depends on which one you want. I I think they're they're both um so similar in what they do, um that really it's it's up to you. They're both priced the same, they both have the same DAC chip. One has newer Bluetooth, one has uh little older Bluetooth, but not by much. The other one has like Bluetooth 5.1 or 5.2. You know what? Matter of fact, let's check out what what Bluetooth it has. Let me see.

SPEAKER_01:

So let's see.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Bluetooth five point one. Yeah, here we go. So this is it right here. X out of this. So uh here's the um the type of Bluetooth codex that this one has. So it's got LDAC, it's got adaptive app dex, uh, which basically means that it'll you know switch on the fly if it's if it's having um a hard time with with uh with the signal. Um appdex, the the the reg this is kind of like the bottom of the barrel appdex. This is still better than SBC. Um low latency. I have no idea. I haven't really uh researched appdex low latency. Um the one that I use is is app is LDAC. So uh and if you want to pick uh happy medium between LDAC and uh app decks, HD is the one you want to use after that, and then of course got SBC, which is your standard Bluetooth, and AAC, which is Apple's proprietary Bluetooth codec. Uh yeah, so honestly, if I was gonna pick one, I kind of like the FIO for the features, but I kind of like the BDCU for its simplicity and um the fact that it has Appdex uh lossless for future proofing. Um, really, that's not a big deal. Uh, if I want to listen to my music with maximum fidelity, I'm gonna use Wired, obviously. And the reason that I even chose a Bluetooth receiver or even looked at this is during meetups. Um, when I'm sitting on my side, I like to just have the my DAP in my hand and you know in control. Uh normally my DAP is pointed towards me in the driver's side. So yeah. Um, so again, keep an eye out for uh for the giveaway. I hope you guys subscribe. I really appreciate everybody. Have a happy new year and a good holiday.